No. 1/1 Softball preview: at RV/- Kansas

AUSTIN, Texas – With the nation having now taken notice of The University of Texas' softball program after the Longhorns have earned six consecutive ranked wins, UT will take the nation's No. 1 ranking and put it on the line during a three-game Big 12 Conference series at Kansas this weekend.

The two teams will begin the series at 5 p.m. on Friday, April 19, while Saturday's game is slated for 2 p.m. The three-game series will wrap up at 12 p.m. on Sunday, April 21. All three games will be available to stream on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.

TELEVISION: Leif Lesac (play by play) and Cacy Williams (analyst) will serve as the talent for the ESPN+ broadcasts.

RADIO: Andrew Haynes can be heard with the series radio call at https://texas.leanplayer.com/.

LEADING OFF

Texas sophomore catcher Reese Atwood will travel to Lawrence, Kan., needing just five runs batted in (RBI) to tie the program's single-season RBI record (66) held by Lindsey Stephens (2014) and Taylor Thom (2013).
- With her current 61 RBI, Atwood is one of just three student-athletes (Stephens, Thom, Atwood) in program history to drive in 60-or-more runs in a single season.
  - Additionally, Atwood is 12 RBI shy of tying Shelby Pendley's 2013 season total (73) for 10th on the Big 12 Conference's single-season RBI list.
    - If Atwood breaks into the list, she would be the only non-Oklahoma student-athlete to earn her way onto the conference's single-season RBI list.
Since moving to the leadoff spot in Texas' batting lineup against Baylor on Friday, April 12, Ashton Maloney is batting .667 with a team-leading eight hits in 12 official plate appearances.
- Maloney has also scored six runs out of the No. 1 slot over the last three games, which is the second most runs scored by a Longhorn student-athlete (8, Mia Scott) during the span.
- Alyssa Washington is the only Texas softball student-athlete with a higher batting average than Maloney's over the last three games as the senior second baseman has a .714 clip (five hits in seven at bats) while also drawing a team-high four walks to spark a team-leading on-base percentage of .833.
- As a direct result of the offensive spark over the last three games, Maloney will enter this weekend's series at Kansas with a Big 12-leading .453 batting average.
With five more hits this season, junior Mia Scott will surpass the 200-career hit milestone.
- Keely Franks (1997-2000) is 10th on the program's career hit list with 207, so Scott needs 12 more hits to break into the program's career hit leaderboard.
As a product of her eight-RBI series against Baylor over the weekend, Reese Atwood surpassed the 100-career RBI mark and now sits at 104 for her two-year Longhorn career, just nine back of 10th place (Desiree Williams, 2005-09) on the program's career RBI list.
Texas will travel up to Lawrence riding a 20-game winning streak over Kansas in games played in the Sunflower State dating back to the Longhorns' last loss to the Jayhawks at Arrocha Ballpark on April 13, 2008.
- Overall, UT is 23-11 against Kansas in games played in Lawrence, Kan.
  - Additionally, the Longhorns are 47-15 all time against the Jayhawks since the first-ever meeting between the two softball programs on April 6, 1997 in Lawrence, Kan.

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Players Mentioned

Reese Atwood

Ashton Maloney

Mia Scott

Alyssa Washington

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics